Modern and Contemporary

Re/String
Adam Cicchillitti; Steve Cowan; Collectif9
Leaf Music LM298 (leaf-music.ca/music/lm298)

Whoever said that nothing good ever comes from conferences clearly has not heard the music on Re/String. The CC Duo, composed of Canadian guitarists Adam Cicchillitti and Steve Cowan, joined forces in 2019 at the 21st Century Guitar Conference in Ottawa with the goal of exploring the bleeding edge of classical guitar in both performance and on record. And that they do.

 Here, on this 2025 release from Nova Scotia’s Leaf Music, the duo is joined by Montreal’s collectif9, a nine-piece string ensemble under the artistic direction of Thibault Bertin-Maghit, to creatively mine a fresh program of new musical work by a largely Canadian collection of exciting composers that includes Amy Brandon, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Patrick Roux, Bekah Simms and Harry Stafylakis. The music is both beautiful and engaging but also dark, creative, and exploratory, challenging Cicchillitti and Cowan to stretch the limits of their already considerable technique with virtuosic finger-style passages, percussive playing, alternate instrumental tunings, and cross-genre stylistic leaps that traverse the worlds of classical, rock, and even heavy metal. 

 A highly fêted group who has already been recognized with multiple awards at the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America’s International Ensemble Competition, Re/String will undoubtedly mark another creative and commercial success for this impressive duo who are committed to touring and keeping alive this vibrant collection of exciting new string music.

Listen to 'Re/String' Now in the Listening Room

Found Objects | Sound Objects
Marc-André Hamelin
Hyperion Records CDA68457 (hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68457)

I should disclose that I have been a follower of this artist for several decades, even before he came full time to Hyperion. Marc-André Hamelin has followed a process of constant refinement of his unique set of assets and musical strengths. He has a recent disc of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata, and now we have a collection of thorny, magnificent items that hover beyond traditional harmony, and explore challenging new forms of pianistic expression. 

This new disc has perhaps one of the most impressive programs in recent years, and it seems to extend the challenging tone of his recent album of his own compositions, with seven pieces by six composers, many of whom are not generally familiar, plus one new item by Hamelin himself.

Frank Zappa starts the program with Ruth is Sleeping which is quite atonal and sets the tone of a searching modernism found in most of these pieces. Salvatore Martriano’s Stuck on Stella is full of pianistic surprises, but the third item Tip by John Oswald from 2021 is waywardly tonal, and it lapses into sudden snippets of hackneyed piano repertoire by composers such as Chopin and Ravel, that are woven into the texture but only as wisps of quotes that suddenly appear and dissolve without any development. This can be heard as a crossover piece, but there may be irony in the bluntness of the quotes.

In the middle place we get a John Cage piece for prepared piano, The Perilous Night, from 1944, which reduces and restricts the enormous pianistic potential to the scale of a tiny percussion ensemble, sometimes evoking a Gamelan, in simplistic rhythmic music that conjures primitive folk elements. The pianist plays percussively and is given many little rhythmic twists and changes, and there are no tunes or harmonies. 

For me the major interest is Stefan Volpe’s hyper-complex tour-de-force Passacaglia, from 1936, revised in 1971, which seems to cram in every possible compositional device which Hamelin manages with perfect expressive poise in spite of the torrent of notes. Another 14-minute complex musical organism is the Refrain by Jehudi Winer, a friend of Hamelin’s, which has a sense of very personal commitment. This piece from 2012, is one of my favourites with moments of a kind of lyricism.

The final Witches Sabbath, Hamelin’s own Hexxensabbath, seems an absolute release of fury, and frenzied dancing, and is almost a stunt in its complete abandon at banging at the piano the way I never thought possible from this always poised artist.  

The piano sound is, as usual with Hamelin, sumptuous and rich. I urge this collection for anyone who is ready for a bracing wake-up, since the program can have an eruptive effect on one’s disposition.

Songs for Glass Island
Experimental Music Unit and Camille Norment
Redshift Records TK569 (redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/songs-for-glass-island)

Songs for Glass Island unfolds as a continuous 50-minute soundscape divided into ten songs although the work behaves like a single evolving organism in two parts. Its conceptual spark comes from Robert Smithson’s unrealized 1969 land-art proposal to encrust Miami Islet in the Salish Sea with 100 tons of tinted glass, a project eventually abandoned due to public opposition. Rather than illustrating the idea, the artists imagine the acoustic life of such a place: the resonances and spectral ecologies that might arise from a glass-covered island.

Created by Camille Norment with Experimental Music Unit members Tina Pearson, George Tzanetakis and Paul Walde, the album immerses the listener in the raw, elemental acoustics of glass—shattered, bowed, blown, rubbed and coaxed into states that feel both organic and otherworldly.

Part I opens with a burst of shattering textures that gradually dissolve into long, breath-infused tones. Low, whale-like undulations emerge for an extended sequence, with higher gestures appearing as counterpoint. The soundscape then shifts into bell-like and whistling tones in close harmonic clusters before giving way to rougher grating timbres. Part II enters in stark contrast, with spacious, resonant bell-like tones. Gradually, short articulations gather in layers over a low-register drone, bringing this glass-born world to a close.    

Throughout, the absence of electronic processing heightens the music’s intensity. Songs for Glass Island is a rare achievement, an acoustic world of glass rendered with breathtaking imagination and precision.

From Grimsby to Milan
Gayle Young; Robert Wheeler
Farpoint Recordings fp104 (farpoint.bandcamp.com/album/from-grimbsy-to-milan)

From Grimsby to Milan is six avant-garde experimental, eclectic, at times loud/stormy, instrumental improvisations. Canadian composer, multi-instrumentalist, author and instrument designer Gayle Young (Grimsby, ON) plays her invention, the acoustic Amaranth, a microtonal zither that features 21 steel strings and 3 double-bass strings using a mix of guitar tuning pegs and triangular wooden bridges for tuning. American Robert Wheeler (Milan, OH), former Pere Ubu band synthesist, plays the electronic 1960s analogue synthesizer EML Electrocomp 101. Young and Wheeler first collaborated in a 2008 Toronto performance. This release was recorded in spring 2024 at Hamilton’s Grant Avenue Studios.

It may be difficult for some to enjoy this music but give it a try! Seaweed Slowly Shifting starts with single held notes, ripples, and high notes, then Young playing softer with pizzicato. More electronic louder held “in tune,” sometimes wobbling, notes move above string plucks and quasi melodies. Electronic drum-like banging leads to a relaxed decrescendo ending. Iceberg Star Chart starts subtly with lower held electronic notes below Young’s strums. A short silence is followed by high held notes and bangs; string strums with electronic backdrop of high notes and “watery” effect. Clear separate blending lines each match changing louder volumes making for accessible listening. Then a gradual more atonal low pitched zither solo melody. Ripple effect enters with an ascending line, electronic interjections and a sudden ending.  

These improvised duets vary from unified and close to contrasting, distant, detached tonal/atonal lines. Wheeler’s intriguing synthesizer percussion, howls, birdy chirps and sound bursts, and Young’s colourful sounds are majestic, breathtaking, attention-grabbing and smart!

Listen to 'From Grimsby to Milan' Now in the Listening Room